Zaef gives chase almost immediately, shouting back to Angel in English "Stay where you are!" as he dashes after the scout. Hopefully he can catch him before he can patch himself up and use the cloak...

The Turai ducks under low branches and slams through torso-sized leaves in his headlong, staggering run through the jungle. Zaef's been through the Grinder protocol in the Arena - he flows and leaps through branches and mud and darkness like he did through the saws and crushers a lifetime ago.

The bastard's quick, agile enough to stop the bleeding with his frisbee while running but he's not focused like Zaef is. The predator and his prey are gone from Angel's sight; the Delta can figure out their rough direction from the noise they're making but to follow them would be as much tracking as it would be running.

Zaef's almost close enough to grab that camo cloak the Turai's wearing. He's definitely close enough to hear the man shouting muffled directives into his helmet vox: "Confirmed! They're Narsai'i, Samal! Not Sheen! Gurhk!" The scout rebounds off a tree trunk with a grunt and changes direction, heading towards the river. Zaef scrapes his left-hand knife across the same tree like a skier, following the Imperial without slowing down.

Zaef passes his second blade to his off hand and this time does grab a fistful of camo cloak. A yank snaps the half-cape off the Turai and sends his feet out from under him. Zaef lets the poncho drop and leaps blades-first towards his victim. The scout rolls to the side and Zaef lands on the guy's beamer. The rifle whaps, sending a spray of hot forest floor spraying up around the pair, then Zaef slashes towards the Turai, who's forced to leave his gun and scramble back to avoid the blade. He gets to his feet quickly and draws his sword. No time for battlefield healing now - the Imperial slides the frisbee to his hip and keeps his armored free hand out in front of him, ready to grapple or punch.

"I saw you fight Gorm the Dissolver," the Turai hisses through his roughed-up helm-vox. "Always wondered if I could take an Arena champ."

Zaef replies with what counts, a scissoring strike aiming to stop the fight before it even starts. The Turai bats one blade out of the way and steps in to catch Zaef's other arm. Zaef knees the armored man low and takes a headbutt for his trouble, then an elbow to Zaef's nose sends the fighters apart again, each breathing heavy in the downpour. The former Bloodwraith doesn't stop for recovery. The frisbee on the Turai's hip prompts both opponents to throw caution to the wind. All that matters is victory; the alien device will regenerate everything else. A parried high stab leads into a feint, then a spin in the mud to sidestep a counterstrike, then a pommel to the Turai's pauldron and a grievous stab to the Imperial's thigh that geysers blood as Zaef draws his blade out. The Imperial steps into Zaef's stance, traps the rebel's second knife arm with his free hand and slashes Zaef with an upstroke that skips off ribs and sprays blood in a crescent. Zaef catches his breath and it's lungfuls of hot razors. He blocks a hasty punch, slashes low to ward off a kick, slaps aside the Turai's sword and presses the parry into a lunge that's blocked on the scout's angled forearm carapace. Zaef lunges again, this time off center. He slides further in the mud than the Imperial expects - the Turai overextends himself trying to catch Zaef and the rebel martial artist stabs through the armor's armpit and hits lung. The Turai staggers, bogged down with pain and blood loss. His feet dance to a slower tune. A lullaby, perhaps.

Zaef makes it a funeral dirge. He skewers the Turai's sword arm, leaving the knife pinning the wounded man's bicep to his side. With his free hand, he grabs the Imperial's helmet, pushes it to the side to expose the undersuit, and cuts the man's head off.

Blood pours down Zaef's torso, mixing with the rain and mud. He's bleeding badly but the dead man's frisbee can see to that.

Seeing the beast's dark fur in the cold blue glow, Semo's first instinct is to swing the XM-25 around and blow it to hell and back. Fortunately, cooler, smarter heads prevail. A simple gunning of the ATVs engine and the creature lights out like its ass was on fire.

Once the vehicle is positioned in the cave, Semo buckles down to the work of setting up camp. He's done this so many times over his career, he can do it pretty much anywhere - even an alien planet - practically with his eyes closed.

Zaef drops the head of his prey and reaches for the kauka, wincing as his chest wound protests the movement. He also grabs the cloak and drapes it over his arm and shoulder to keep the rain out of the way of his work. He leans his back against a tree and holds the kauka up to the nasty red stripe going up his chest, trying to remember how to use the damn thing for a second before trying to patch himself up.

Angel takes up another position, alert and worried. A single Turai following them seems...surprising.

Angel changes position, moving back to flanking cover in view of his old spot. A minute or two go by with no further contact, which is even more worrisome. Did they sneak by? Did Zaef charge into their waiting blades? Are they lining up a shot right now?

---

Zaef gasps, this time in relief, as the frisbee's warm glow beams over his wound. The bleeding stops and fresh pink meat wells up from the wound, knitting Zaef's chest back together. He's been hurt so many times throughout the years that tomorrow he won't even be able to tell where he got hit. It's just all the same shade of replacement tan skin.

The dead man carried his slightly-damaged beam rifle, his Turai sword, a half-depleted rations pack, and a stinger - all standard. The frisbee is priceless, of course. The cloaking poncho is a useful find, and uncommon on typical Imperial military considering their basic armor does much the same. Zaef spots a single folded-up spear-bomb in the man's gear, as well as a strange manual-action weapon he eventually recognizes as a Sheen scrambler. The dead Turai must have originally thought Zaef and his comrades were a Sheen landing party. Makes sense, considering what ripped through their orbital.

Zaef looks at the armor's environmental gear longingly, but standard procedure for this mission is not to wear Turai armor. Agent Davis said he wants to distance the Homeworld from the Imperium in the eyes of the Wherren and wearing the armor of the enemy could be confusing. Also, if Angel sees Zaef in Turai gear stalking back through the jungle, Zaef'd be lucky if the frisbee could save him.

Zaef packs up the weapons(including the scrambler) and the kauka, slipping the spear-bomb next to his swords. He's looking at the armor wistfully when he remembers something. He picks up the helmet and removes the decapitated head from inside, then extracts the entirety of the vox from the Turai equipment with a little help from his knife. He then sheathes his knives and wraps up all the weapons up in the cloak to make them easier to carry.

Zaef walks back towards Angel and the ambush spot, bundle under one arm, vox components in his other hand, kauka on his hip, and the remains of his prey right where he left it. The forest will clean it up for him.

(TIME SKIP!)

Close to the ambush site, Zaef figures Angel's still around, although he can't see him. He raises the fist with the vox in it and shouts "Let's get back to the caves, now that our hour's up. I could use a warm fire."

Angel and Zaef soon rejoin the rest of the team at the cave. Zaef's pleased to have looted a second kauka to go with the one Luis has been carrying, plus he's acquired a cloaking poncho, one of the Turai spearbombs, and a strange longarm meant to kill Sheen. Angel's acquired a rather nasty-looking-but-not-terribly-life-threatening hole in his strike plate and shirt that's quickly attended to. Zaef's also stripped the Turai's vox module from his helmet, and sits down to try to bypass the biomonitors' lockout protocols.

Elsewhere on Whiirr

Manus frowns as Noth's monitors go black. He taps Iketna and hand-signals the team their new vox channel. Jaq shakes his head; he knows it meant Noth was dead.

"People, listen up," Manus begins. The small procession of Imperials stops, sitting or leaning where they can. "Noth confirmed our quarry are a mix of Narsai'i and traitors. Most likely they are headed to either the Master research camp or the native village closest to it. We will find out what they are doing here on Whiirr. We will find out why they have allied themselves with the Sheen. We must alert the Imperium to this, and we must protect these few survivors here and our comrades at the research camp. To accomplish this mission, we will need help... so, Chief Arpana, it looks like we're doing this your way after all."